I have written enough things in LaTeX to know how incredibly powerful it is. The equation typesetting in particular is just magical, and is more or less the academic standard for scientific papers. However, entering mathematical symbols (both when editing LaTeX and outside) can be a real pain. Some are easy to remember, but I often find myself having to quickly search online for the less common ones (how do I do a definite integral again?) which slows things down. Enter the Mathpad: a macropad for students, academics and engineers who use mathematical symbols often and want to be able to enter them directly!
Fully open-source (and OSHWA certified!), you are free to hack on the device and customize it with whatever symbols or keystrokes you find best. As it comes, there are multiple different modes. The plaintext mode enters the symbol directly; the LaTeX mode enters the proper LaTeX syntax for the symbol; and there are also Microsoft/OpenOffice Equation Editor modes to allow easy insertion and editing in those environments.
A neat version of this might be to change some of the symbols to those commonly used by engineers: µ, Ω, ±, and things like the logical operators ⊼ ⊽∧. However, with the open firmware, changing these things is easy! So no matter what field you’re in, you can easily customize the symbols. Oh, and the best part? The Gateron switches are hot-swappable, so you can easily pop in your favourite clicky or tactile switches to get just the feel you want!
